


Five Things Gregor Vorbarra Didn't Do at Twenty

by lightgetsin



Category: Vorkosigan Saga
Genre: Depression, Gen, Politics, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-27
Updated: 2006-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightgetsin/pseuds/lightgetsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things Gregor Vorbarra Didn't Do at Twenty

He didn’t get drunk at his birthday party – birthday _celebration_, as Lady Alys had firmly corrected. It was a fine semantic distinction Gregor did not particularly want to contemplate. He’d need to be drunk for that, in fact.

But he was as sober as one glass of wine through three dozen toasts could leave him – “to his imperial majesty!” “to your health, Sire!” “to the times of prosperity to come!” And it wasn’t as if he was a great fan of intoxication – he could see the appeal, certainly, but he also thought the entire thing far too disturbingly . . . loosening. Unbuttoning. Revealing. But if there was ever a time . . .

Prime Minister Vorkosigan was at his shoulder throughout, a steadying presence during the private assumption of powers before the Council of Counts, and then the long line of oaths and ceremonial gifts after dinner. Right up until it was his turn, anyway, when he vanished quietly from Gregor’s side only to reappear in line three counts later. He went to one knee, offered his hands and the formal words. It wasn’t the first time, of course, but it was different tonight.

And that was the problem, really, Gregor thought as he pressed the weathered hands between his own. Aral had spent the last fifteen years impressing upon him the weight of this moment, the awesome heft of the burden which had come to him today. And he had also told Gregor, in words and deeds, that everything would be fine, there was nothing truly to fear, here come and bend your head for this bridle, this privilege. Gregor hadn’t yet gathered the courage to ask him how he reconciled these two worldviews. He’d need to be drunk for that.

*

Gregor didn’t ask Victoria Vordrozda to marry him when he was twenty. Gregor didn’t ask any number of girls to marry him when he was twenty, but he only actually came close with her. Lady Alys had presented her to him shortly after his birthday, tacitly signaling a high placement on the simultaneously exclusive and staggeringly long list of eligible empresses. Victoria was seventeen, lovely, poised, charming. She could dance, converse comfortably in four languages, and make even the walking cadavers of the old Vor guard smile. And Gregor realized, early on, that a clever clever brain was working away behind her pretty green eyes.

She was a semi-permanent fixture on his arm for several weeks, and he knew there was talk. Her father was dead, but her brother the Count inserted himself into Gregor’s orbit. Gregor liked him, too. It was so refreshing to talk to someone who wasn’t twice his age for once.

And he actually considered doing it, went so far as planning out a few possible scenarios – after the state dinner on the terrace, in the rose garden, out riding west of the city. She would make a good empress, he thought; she had a genuine liking for people, a strong complement to his sometimes labored social efforts. And she was made exactly to match him – bright, well bred, beautiful. He could grow to love her in time, he was sure.

And then he just didn’t do it. He extricated himself from her as gracefully as possible, offered polite excuses to her disappointment. He was relieved to discover that the whole thing wouldn’t damage the growing friendship with Count Vordrozda.

It was nothing he could name, just a quiet, unsettled instinct that tugged at his acquiescence and whispered that just right was all wrong. He didn’t really understand it – not then – but he did understand what ‘irrevocable’ meant, and so he listened.

*

Gregor didn’t follow through on any of the plans he had started making. And it wasn’t like they were actually plans. Just little ideas he played with in interminable Council sessions, or when he couldn’t sleep.

Stupid things, really. Like finding a close enough double for himself somewhere in the military – shouldn’t be hard, considering the limited gene pool – and orchestrating a little swap in lives. Just for a few weeks, maybe a few months. Or, for the sake of verisimilitude, somehow arranging for a clone to be fast grown and groomed to replace him. Just silly little ideas like that. Stupid, but they passed the time. It wasn’t like he would ever actually do anything like that.

*

Gregor didn’t see much of Miles, who was off to school on Beta Colony most of that year. He’d been rather smug about the whole thing before he’d gone, and Gregor stamped on the persistent little weed of jealousy for the hundredth time in the past ten years. Miles would be utterly incredulous if he knew; he’d give Gregor a _you idiot_ look and say “jealous of what?” with one of those painfully self-conscious grins, and Gregor wouldn’t know how to say “you, your father, your mother, your life, your everything.”

But Miles was noticeable by his absence, except for the infrequent letters, one of which was even directed to Gregor. It was a short note; they’d somehow shed the childhood closeness when he wasn’t looking. A wedge had insinuated itself between them, made up equal parts of the Imperium and the crazed, cornered look Miles was starting to wear more and more. It was exhausting just being in the same room with him nowadays, and Gregor had heard enough from Cordelia to know that they feared for him sometimes, for his brain bigger than his sense, and his heart out there for the taking. It was refreshing, knowing that yet another distanced relationship wasn’t all due to his majority and ascension, that someone else’s self-preoccupied pain could be just as important. Gregor missed him.

*

Gregor didn’t tell anyone when he was twenty. About the plans that weren’t plans, about the insomnia, about the moments of unwelcome clarity when he could see the long, slow slide ahead of him. About the things he thought in those moments, like maybe he wasn’t supposed to feel like this, like maybe it would be better for everybody if he unhitched himself from the heavy load so as not to drag it down with him, maybe it would be best if he just . . . disappeared. No look-alike, no clone. Just gone.


End file.
